Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Jamming is Just a Means

The ongoing victory of the ECM Skiff is bringing more refreshment, fun and justice to Verge Vendor region of Highsec. The ECM Skiff has the Neo-Code and GankerJamming to guide its actions, which is why it ALWAYS wins.

Are you sure?

The latest gank-prevention happened in Scheenins against the aptly-named Nice Trap m8, a recently born ganker with already many successful punishments against stupid AFK miners. Nice Trap m8 had every reason to be happy: his own corporation, a hilarious YouTube channel and an emergent ganking career. There was a problem though: he did not have a ganking permit.So I went to Scheenins and looked for attractive gank targets that I can protect. Eventually, I found one.

No, sorry, actually here it is:

There was a Retriever at one of the asteroid belts.

For the next 20-30 minutes, I waited for a sign of the ganker.

Oh hi there, m8.

Shortly after the ganker's arrival to Local, his scout Gaige Blair Gallente ran a quick scan with combat probes of his Buzzard.

The robot-like heretic in the Catalyst was now on his way towards our guidance, justice and emergent enlightenment.

As soon as the Catalyst landed, the Skiff's third officer Khaled ben Abdelaziz Al-Winchestori locked the target and second engineer Abdourahman Ibn-Weaselior Adoudel activated the strong emission of ionized particles towards the heretic.

Another victory for the ECM Skiff. The gank was stopped successfully. As always, CONCORD was pretty much useless and late to the party. Seriously, who needs CONCORD when there is emergent & fun player interaction like this? Believe me, the day CCP nerfs NPC police and actually gives some more opportunities and rewards to real player interaction, it will be one small step for CCP and one giant leap for Highsec.

As can be seen in this example, motivated and dedicated players can catch the outlaw gankers (-5 and below) at gates. This prevents the ganker from even reaching his target. In this example, the DPS was done by real players before the NPC Faction Police had even arrived to the scene.

Anyways, unlike many other gankers, Nice Trap m8 was surprisingly silent after his ruined gank. No compliments, no 'gf', no tears. Was he mad? Or is this another hopeless case of force tranquille like the notorious ganker Keikira Otsada?

Over the course of years, we have seen gankers with interesting names: fascinating philosophies like Gaylord Fappington, microeconomic trends like Currin Trading, exotic inspirations like Salah Ad-Din Al-Jawahiri or breaking news like JerryRin AT2016 Commentator. However, few gankers have reached a high level of accuracy in their names. Nice Trap m8 is one of them. gf m8!By the way, this encounter had many lessons for Highsec miners. In a conversation that I had with the targeted miner, I briefly mentioned them. Enforcing the Neo-Code is also done by giving important advices to miners (which works better than saying "don't mine scrub")

He wasn't AFK, which is great. The first advice is to fly tanky. This means Procurer or Skiff. Also, he could just dock up or go elsewhere to do something else. Surely there are other things than mining in EVE.

The second advice is more about situation awareness. Known gankers should appear in Local at all times. That is a useful early warning. The miner was thankful. See? Not all highsec miners are angry AFK carebears.

The third advice is about knowing how miner ganking is organized. Scouts providing warp-ins by Approaching the target is quite popular, but in this case, the scout used Combat Scanner Probes to find the target. It is therefore also important to keep an eye on D-Scan and look for possible combat probe spikes within close range of your ship.

D-Scan, D-Scan, D-Scan. It has been said a million times on blogs and forums. Use it, embrace it. If they show Catalysts, get ready to warp away.

It is now up to the miner to pay attention to his surroundings and mine like a boss (obey the Neo-Code). If he fails to do so, he will simply put his assets at risk.

SKIFFOLOGY BONUS!

While our ECM Skiff is a dazzling and victorious figure of Highsec Anti-Ganking, there are also people out there who enforce Skiffology in different areas and ways. Allow me to introduce you wanon.